It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 5 months since Matt Holliday broke the fielding balls with your balls barrier. But it’s true. And after an off-season of tenuous tumult, rancid prothlesizing and varied baboonery by Cardinal Nation and its merry band of brothers – it’s time for grown men to wear tights and swing sticks of wood at leather bound cork.
Many have followed the Cardinals maneuvers during the off-season with the intensity of a 13-year old discovering TubeStack.com for the first time.
This column is not for you.

But for many Redbird fans that spent the winter cooking meth or working the holiday shift at UPS you might not know exactly how the Cardinals will be different in 2010 than they were in 2010. So let us provide you with a primer…
+ The Cardinals signed Matt Holliday and his (hopefully) recovered twig n’ berries to a 120 million dollar deal. And no, Mark DeRosa didn’t get on the juice, Holliday decided he needed to wear the number #7 in 2010 after DeRosa retired to bang his wife every waking hour of the day. A win/win for both guys!
+ Seeing a void in the hot chick area established by Rick Ankiel’s harem in 2008, the Cardinals reacted quickly and picked up Karina Smirnoff. Which worked out nicely since she’s dating a pitcher named Brad Penny or something. I’m pretty sure that this Penny guy is going to pitch for the Cards in 2010, but nobody’s really all that clear about that. Smirnoff, though? She’s going to work out very nicely in St. Louis.

+ Remember J-Rod, John Rodriguez? Well his little brother Jamie Garcia finally made the big leagues. We all thought that Rich Hill or Kyle McClellan was going to be the fifth starter, didn’t we? Nope. The rookie gets the spot and soon he’ll also claim J-Rod’s mayor of Al Hrabosky’s on Four Square. That’s a given.

+ Someone, I forget who, told me that they went to Yadier Molina’s house one time and everything was marble. From the floors to the ceiling was nothing but marble. Backsplashes, the garage- everything MARBLE! I don’t know if this had anything to do with the spring training ending injury to his oblique he suffered, but it couldn’t have helped.

+ Albert Pujols had a back strain and everyone, present company included, got out the puffers and went to town. Then Albert went ahead and crushed like a bazillion home runs the last couple weeks of spring training killing a bunch of palm trees and shit. So we put the puffers away and remembered that the Cardinals have Albert Pujols and Albert Pujols doesn't get injured. He injures. (Side: have we ever had a comprehensive piece on who actually gave the advice to draft AP? Wouldn't this make for a great article- just going back and finding as much crap about his draft and what scouts said about him and what Cardinals front office people said about him? I bet some guy was all "Dude can barely speak English- fuck him!". I bet that dude is blowing other dudes behind Clementine's tonight.)

+ Jim Edmonds decided that the half-shirts and groupies just weren't in his past and announced at a charity benefit for abused dogs that he'd be coming back to the Cardinals. Then the Cardinals politely told Edmonds that they'd rather jam a rusted railroad spike in their urethra and Jimmy Baseball made his way to Wisconsin. He soon realized that he was- ZOMG!- living in Wisconsin and wanted to quit. Then he remembered the half-shirts and groupies again and decided to stay. Until he defects on the first road trip to LA or NYC.

+ Big Mac came back! As a hitting coach. Bummer, I know. He had a bunch of fat journalists yell at him about putting horse hormones in his butthole way back in the silly 1990's. But after a few tears and a few beers, he was out in Jupiter every day giving Cardinal players hitting tips and, hopefully, horse hormones. I mean, we didn't like 1998? I think we did.

Other things? Well they may or may not of happened, but I think we covered the real important stuff to get you ready for 2010.

Oh, the Cubs still suck. Forgot to mention that. But that doesn't really change much year to year anyway.